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The other night, feeling all wrapped in words, I pined over the telephone to Xue.
“I wish I had a diary.”
“But you do,” she replied, “it’s online.”

So here we are. The last couple of months I’ve felt like I haven’t had the time to write here, but the things I’ve wanted to write about continue to flow in from one side and out of the other. For example, over Labor Day weekend Brad, Ryan and I rode north from Chico to Lassen National Park and back. We left Friday night after nine and weren’t back in town until at least ten on Monday night.

The first night we rode up to Inskip, taking full advantage of the full moon. It was bright enough that lights were rarely necessary to see the road. We climbed until maybe 2 or 3 in the morning, when I decided to quit. We pulled off the main road onto a small dirt stretch, made some dinner, and slept as the sun started to lighten the sky.

Saturday we hit the dirt seconday roads leading that wind between Inskip and Butte meadows. I was happy to be running 35c tires, but wish the Panaracers had a bit of shoulder tread to them.

We arrived by lunch, and happened upon a BBQ rib cook-off at the Bambi Inn clamper bar. Free meat, potatoes, and bread for all. Beers were bought for us. We rode on through the afternoon and another moonlit night until we reached a campground just south of the park entrance. Big fire that night, plenty of fuel.

We spent Sunday in the park, climbing, swimming, descending, eating.

It’s a beautiful stretch of road that snakes up and over those mountains. Traffic was forgiving on the way up, and completely absent from our descent to the Manzanita Lake campgrounds. We almost got booted from our unreserved campsite though, and I nearly froze to death, but we made it through the night.

The next day was long, fast, hot, downhill, and long. From the North entrance to the park on 44, we rode all the way back to Chico. There were some amazing views coming back into the valley, some wicked 15% grade descents followed immediately by 10mph turns, and a handful of flat tires. It was thrilling to wake up at the base of a mountain and watch it fade beyond view by late afternoon. What’s more exciting is the notion that this kind of trip is so easy to embark upon. I want more.

See the whole photo set here.